The Suprised TankPosted 07/07/08 at 2:02 AM by DeeNoggerUpdated 07/07/08 at 2:14 AM by DeeNoggerKeen Formation is not a top 10 world guild. Keen Formation has never gotten a World First kill, it has never been on mmo-champion or wowinsider nor does it have any famous members beyond a chronically confused shadow priest apt to horrible misspellings. Keen Formation is an unspecial guild on a special server where it finds itself right at home in that meaty spot between hardcore and casual (Seriously Casual?) However, Keen Formation does have one special quality that no guild is quite like: we wipe in strange ways.

Not every wipe is truly a "KF wipe" but every blue moon something will go on that makes even the battle hardened veterans of the 'Curse of KF' scratch their head. Internet lock ups at 11% on Archimonde that seem to afflict our raid instance only, handfuls of the raid chain DCing on Felmyst one night, and then a different sub set another night are mundane compared to epic wipes we have had. Key healers on Twins being disconnected from the internet while living at a Jesus camp because, and this is a quote, "The lord does not approve of such intense gaming" are more in line with the "normal" causes of our very abnormal raiding wipes. Bellow is the story of one such boss fight that no raid leader could possibly have planned for yet was flawlessly executed by 25 Keen Formation raiders proving that, in special times, Keen Formation has the best raiders in the world.

The Set Up:For the past few weeks we had been having trouble with Felmyst because of Prot Paladin issues. In Keen Formation all the members of a specific class/role make sure to time their absences (vacation, work, computer malfunctions, getting yelled at by God, etc) so that all of them are missing at once. In true form all of our paladins have spotty attendance for about two weeks, with both Prot paladins being completely mia (one computer dead, the other burning out/work). The first week we used a main raiders Alt Paladin for Felmyst. The Karazhan Geared, not enchanted, poorly gemmed, alt of a Warlock. Fuck. But we get the kill, and in reality the Prot Paladin was hardly an issue.

The following week this player is not available and both prot paladins are still absent. Double Fuck. Bruttalus and Kalecgos are dead (and dropped vanquisher AGAIN) and we have a full raid amped up and ready to see Muru. The only choice is a mage to log onto one of our Prot Paladin's character (they are Real Life friends) and give it a whirl. I quickly check with our tanking guru as to how hard it will be for a mage that has never tanked to tank felmyst.

[W][Tagdoodle]: Mulack, if Dactus gets on the paladin, you can help him round up the skeletons in P2 right?[W][Mulack]: Thunder clap hits 4 mobs for like fucking dick smith damage, no way I can keep it off the healers[RW][Tagdoodle]: Mulack says he can help you tank the skeletons Dactus, get on the paladin and give this a whirl.

So how hard is Prot Paladin tanking? All you have to do is simultaneously pick up 20 different mobs as they b-line for your healers while avoiding beams of green shit (that are, by the way, ejaculating the skeletons all over the place) all the while doing enough threat so your trigger happy semi-retarded AoE doesnt pull off you. Easy you say? Easy as a fork in the eye.

Attempt #1-3:The first attempt can be summed up with the question "What is gas nova?" as 30s into the fight an entire group was dead (1/4th the raid) from gas nova. Ouch. Wipe was called and everyone jumped in the first breath without the prot paladin getting any practice. The following attempt (attempt #2) ended in similar fashion but this time caused not by Gas Nova (pfft, who wipes to that?) but Encapsulate. With all the fun of "Where in the World is Paladin-Sandiego" an entire group forgot that giant purple hurt ball = run the fuck away and 1/4th our raid was once again a grease spot on the ground 30s into the fight. Wipe was called, everyone jumped into the 1st breath and once again we have not tested our prot paladin.

Attempt #3 had more success with the first ground phase ending with all 25 KF raiders standing in bold defiance to Felmyst laughable attempts to kill us: "Shoot a ball of ouchie at me, well, good lady, ill just move out of the way! HAHAHHAAHA!" The air phase hit and everyone held their collective breaths as the Mage-turned-tank for the night began rounding up the skeletons. As imagined, it was pretty sloppy. Healers were being gunned down like GIs storming Normandy, Shadow Priests became the head of long run-away trains of skeletons all while someone began entoning over vent:

Yea though I walk through the valley of death, I will fear no evil... (Not really, but that would have been very cool)

The Curse of Keen Formation:In three attempts we had succiently went through every imaginable cause of wipe on the fight. Gas Nova blown. Check. Annihilation via Encap. Check. Skeletons killing everything and anything. Check. Three attempts, we had seen it all. But attempt number four... as life often will... threw us a curve ball.

The attempt starts easy. First and only encapsulate of the attempt was on a paladin, whom bubbled, and we started to cruise towards the air phase. Almost immediately, however, something seemed wrong. First, a soft "uh oh" on vent. Silence. Followed quickly by "HES LOGGING ON! HE IS LOGGING ON!"

The actual owner of the Prot Paladin, Mishlayer, has returned from work and is logging on to see if he can get into the raid for back up. The timer on phase 2 is in single digets and our prot paladin just got disconnected to soon be replaced by a very suprised raider.

[RW][Tagdoodle]: Hold on Baby Jesus, its gonna get Bumpy

The initial stun wears off the raid and is quickly replaced by panic. The main tank calls out to use challenging shouts on the beams as our Arms warrior frantically makes a macro that will spamm raid chat and /yell with the all important message: TANK THE FUCKING SKELETONS MISH! Felmyst rises up into the air with the entire raid holding its breath as Mishlayers status clicks to 'connected'

A quick pause on the story for some back ground information on this prot paladin. He has been a KF raider since Aq40 on his warlock. He switched to paladin with TBC but took some time off from the game after leveling his paladin to 70. He became interested in doing Prot as a side spec (focusing mainly on holy) when we were farming BT waiting for 2.4 [KF never used a Prot Paladin in Hyjal, we're stubborn like that]. Because of work schedual he was not the Prot Paladin that tanked our first Felmyst kill. He is an amazing Holy Paladin and a great raider. He is an ok Prot Paladin and can be caught making some stupid mistakes. Jokingly, he is often times told, by friends, that he "isnt very observant" and is "slow on the uptake". He'll never make the same mistake twice, but as far as adjusting on the fly to strange things mid encounter, he isnt the worlds greatest.

Back to the Felmyst encounter of the century. Felmyst is moments away from breathing her nasty green beam of skeletal bullshit all over the raid. Our prot paladin, whom has NO idea that he is about to load into sun well, much less an active raid encounter, has just loaded. We all wait holding our breath. Will he react in time? Will he be stunned into silence and simply sit there confused until too late? His character appears. He sits there. In raid chat appears one word:

[R][Mishlayer]: Jesus

Without even a heart beat of down time Mishlayer, the real Mishlayer, stood up and began picking up skeletons. Not only did he pick them up, but he picked them up like a fucking pro. No prot paladin tank has ever tanked Felmyst so well. Skeletons from different raid IDs were jumping into ours to be tanked, thats how well he was picking them up. Mishlayer silences 2 years of haters as he literally comes out of a loading screen to a boss encounter in 3s flat, and doesnt fucking bat an eye. Few, if any, can claim such a feet.

The encounter proceeds without any major hitch other than the initial realization that our prot paladin wasnt on vent to hear the breath calls -- which was dealt with some very quick, and all caps, typing in raid warning (NORH YOU MOTHER FCKER@!). After 4 air phases we kill the 1% enraged Felmyst for one of our cleanest Felmyst kills of guild history. A few moments after the kill the vent emote goes out "Mishalyer has joined the channel" and finally his reaction to the whole thing is expressed: